


little river, little trout (wish I was, wish I could)

by SearchingforSerendipity



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: ASoIaF Kink Meme, Brynden is the best uncle ever and a better adoptive father, F/M, Littlefinger's genes rear their heads sometimes, Lysa's Moon Tea Baby Lives, Minisa Rivers the Moontea Baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 03:23:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4813100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SearchingforSerendipity/pseuds/SearchingforSerendipity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>The thing about water, though, is that it sinks it's way into rock and bark and flesh, softens that which is hard, parts that which is though. She will never be tall, never catch the moon and the stars and the world in pale freckled fingers. </em><br/> <br/><em>Men rise, trueborn men with quick fingers and quicker minds rise higher than most. Red haired bastard girls don't.)</em></p><p>  <em>(The Redfish has no roots, no name, only little quick fingers that sink in deeply, hold tight. Her eyes are sly grey things and they see more than they should, want more than they have a right to</em><br/> <br/>Minisa Redfish, the only Rivers in the Vale, rising high and sinking deep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	little river, little trout (wish I was, wish I could)

**Author's Note:**

> This is an answer to the asoiaf kinkmeme prompt: Lysa/Petyr, Brynden is awesome  
> Lysa doesn't tell her father she's pregnant. She tells her uncle. Brynden helps her give birth in secret and later announces that he's sired a bastard.
> 
> http://asoiafkinkmeme.livejournal.com/14196.html?thread=8463476#t8463476
> 
> This is about the Moon Tea Baby, named Minisa. I tried to give her a character of her own, while maintaining traits from both her birth parents.
> 
> Naturally, I own nothing.

 

(Minisa cries, sometimes. Often, in truth, but she is quiet and rarely caught. When she is, Cousin Lysa fusses and Papa lifts her chin and tell her she is strong, strong as the waters of the Riverlands and the rocks of the Vale, and must not cry. Once when she'd been crying because one of the kitchen girls had told her her mother was a whore, Mya Stone had found her and taught her the tricks all the bastards know, about hardening your heart to cruel truths from cruel mouths, about how to retaliate so quietly and sharply your opponent won't know it was you

(' _never get caught, stick to only one lie, words are weapons and so is your smile and so is your fist. '_ ))

 

* * *

 

 

Minisa Rivers is almost twelve when Cousin Lysa births a babe that lasts more than two moons. His name is Robert, after the boy the king was when he was Lord Arryn's ward, and she likes him, but not as much as she liked Ed or sweet Rowena. He lives, though, unlike them, and that makes Cousin Lysa so very happy, so Minisa tries to loves him, even if he cries so much during those awful fits of his, even if Cousin Lysa is so very busy making sure he survives the autumn she doesn't have time for Minisa anymore.

Still, Minisa tries not to be jealous of the attention Robert (' _My dear Sweetrobin_ ', Cousin Lysa calls him) steals from her. After all, she is a bastard, and though she doesn't doubt that Papa loves her very much, and the people of the Vale are mostly kind to her, she has to remind herself sometimes that she is not Cousin Lysa's daughter, not really. For no matter how she may teach her how to stitch and play dolls with her, tell her stories and sing her songs, it is to Robert that Cousin Lysa's love must belong to now.

Minisa sews, and reads, and cleans Robin when Cousin Lysa finally takes the time to rest. There is nothing sweet about it. Bastards don't get to be sweet, just sharp.

Papa notices it, because Papa notices everything, and makes sure to spend more time with her when he can, which is always a boon, even if when he's busy in the Moon Gates or working with Lord Arryn's bannerman he takes her with him often. A sennight before her nameday, they go all the way down to the Snow Gate, sharing a mule, and from there to a forest Papa knows of, and he twirls her around and around amongst the heather and dandelions and call her his Redfish, and they eat in a blanket near a thin singing brook and play come-into-my-castle and maidens-and-Knights, except Minisa is the knight and Papa even lets her hold his sword and teaches her a little, like he always does when they are alone.

(One day, Minisa vows to herself, she will be more than the Blackfish's bastard. She shall be Minisa the Terrible, the Redfish, and her name will be sang and know and admired. She's a child of nowhere, but the Eyrie is her home. She knows well one cannot reach the sky, one can only make themselves taller

(she will be taller than any other, reach higher than the sky and none shall be able to cast her down.))

 

* * *

 

They stay in the guards quarters, and Mya is there visiting her cousins. Mya is Minisa's friend, a bastard like her, a royal seed thriving in the rocks, better than any lady at everything, except sewing. But she knows better things, more important things, and she teaches her own to aim a dagger by the barn, and they go mule riding together and Mya says she'll be almost as good as her.

It's great fun, more than she has had since Robin was born, and it is good not to be in the Eyrie for a time, now that Robin is the Arryn moon they must all orbit about. Still, all good things must end, and she misses Cousin Lysa, so they return with one day to spare, and this time Minisa rides a mule all of her own, a sweet thing by the name of Tylly, although Papa frets the whole way home and grumbles when she teases him.

When they come back, Cousin Lysa is waiting at the doors, and for once there's no squalling baby Robin in her arms. Instead she runs to them and kneels (a daughter of Riverrrun, the Lady of the Eyrie, the only mother Minisa has ever know, kneeling at her feet), painstakingly sewed skits bunching unheeded, and Minisa jumps from her saddle right into a wam embrace.

"You left." Her voice is thick. Minisa has been comforting her cousin's weeping since her chubby arms were long enough to reach her cheeks. It always hurt, even when expected, even at its most annoying. "I sent the maid to fetch you for breakfast but you were gone, gone like him." Him, him, the him with no name. Minisa loathes Cousin Lysa's mysterious him, for the tears and sighs and glances that linger in her grey-green eyes, dimpled cheeks.

Her head his gripped, her face palmed and kissed, time and time again. Sometimes Cousin Lysa makes her promise never to leave her side, and sometimes Minisa promises. This is not one of those occasions, and Minisa is glad. Lying to Cousin Lysa is like kicking a fallen chick, tastes acrid on her tongue.

"I wish you were my mother." Minisa very nearly slaps her hand over her mouth, she would have if her fingers weren't tangled in her cousin's hair (Tully red, like her, but hers is watered down by bastardly and mother that might have been a whore), but now there's nothing to be done. The words have been spilled, and even as she worries that Cousin Lysa will be cross at her, will surely want nothing more to do with her uncle's selfish bastard, she's held even more tightly in arms that smell of lavender oils and babe's sick. Minisa accepts it gladly, relishing in it, and only now does she realize how much she had missed this easy affection.

"Oh, my precious girl," she whispers, and Minisa is not afraid of crying, not now, cares not for Mya and Papa and all the guards watching. "My little Redfish, how I wish I could be your mother."

  

* * *

 

 

(There are rivers and there are rivers; there are mountains and there are mountains. Minisa is child of the river in a kingdom of stone, orange hair garish amongst the grey and green. She's born on one side of the blanket and raised on another, spends more time with Maester Coleman's books than with children too alike her to acknowledge.

The thing about water, though, is that it sinks it's way into rock and bark and flesh, softens that which is hard, parts that which is though. She will never be tall, never catch the moon and the stars and the world in pale freckled fingers.)

Men rise, trueborn men with quick fingers and quicker minds rise higher than most. Red haired bastard girls don't.

(The Redfish has no roots, no name, only little quick fingers that sink in deeply, hold tight. Her eyes are sly green-grey things and they see more than they should, want more than they have a right to

 

(There are no rivers in the Vale. She shall make her own.))

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos, bookmarks and comments are always welcome!


End file.
